Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man

by Sean Williams, Lillis Ó Laoire

Overview

Bright Star of the West examines the life, repertoire, and influence of Ireland's greatest sean-nos (old-style) singer, Joe Heaney (1919-1984). Best known for popularing this form of Gaelic a cappella folk song in the United States, authors Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire reveal the ways in which Heaney's life story demonstrates the intertwining of music with political memory and cultural understanding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199841028
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2011
Series:	American Musicspheres
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Sean Williams is a professor of music, Irish Studies, and Asian Studies at The Evergreen State College. She has written and edited several books, including The Sound of the Ancestral Ship: Highland Music of West Java (2001) and Focus: Irish Traditional Music (2010).

Lillis Ó Laoire is an award winning Gaelic singer, scholar, and writer from the Gaelic speaking region of Donegal, Ireland. He teaches courses in Gaelic language, culture and folklore at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and his publications include On a Rock in the Middle of the Ocean: Songs and Singers in Tory Island, Ireland (2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Singing the Dark Away

Part One: Sean-nós Singing
1. Sean-nós Singing in Theory and Practice
2. The Performance of Sean-nós in Connemara

Part Two: The Iconic Repertoire
3. Singing the Famine
4. The Religious Laments
5. The Medieval Transformed

Part Three: Masculinity in a Musical Context
6. Irish Masculinities: The Irish Tenor and the Sean-nós Singer
7. Fighting Words, Fighting Music: The Performative Male

Part Four: Joe Heaney in America
8. The Irishman at the Threshold
9. The Folk Revival and the Search for Authenticity

Guide to Pronunciation
References
Discography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"An engaging and exhaustive study of the historical developments and social realities that impacted Heaney's attitudes, performance styles, and his eventual rise to prominence as the sean-nós ("old-style") singer par excellence...an intimate and important look at the life of a major figure in Irish folk music. It is a significant work for ethnomusicologists, folklorists, and scholars of Irish culture, and a fitting tribute to the life and art of Joe Heaney.: —Journal of Folklore Research

"In Bright Star of the West, Williams and Ó Laoire have written a text that contextualizes and gives further meaning to the music and life of Joe Heaney." —The New Hibernia Review

"Authors Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire [deliver] a book that is layered, beautifully non-teleological, and intimate, like loosely-sutured memories that do not strive to tell the complete social fact, but which instead subtly connect illuminating moments of performance and interpretation." —Ethnomusicology

From the Publisher